


Awakening

by glimmerglanger



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Consent Issues Related to Unconsciousness, Fairy Tale Elements, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Potentially One-Sided Affection, Prompt: unconscious, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 11:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmerglanger/pseuds/glimmerglanger
Summary: “I don’t understand,” Quill said, foot on the first step, “what did he do?”“We don’t know,” she said. “There’s no way to ask him. He won’t wake up. But, when the Snap came, we never noticed. Others told us about it, when they came here looking for help and sanctuary. Whatever magic impacted the rest of the universe, it passed us by. Here.” She gestured forward as they reached the top of the stairs. “Look in on him, please. We bring all visitors here, hoping one may be able to identify him.”





	Awakening

Traveling with the Guardians gave Thor’s life a sense of structure, purpose, or at least it felt like that some days. Having emergencies dropped in his lap on a daily basis kept him, at the least, focusing on the present day, instead of drifting along in the grief of the past.

Still. None of their adventures, none of their rescues or brave deeds, could touch the heart of him. It had been nothing but a burned out pit in his chest for years. He did not anticipate that changing. For some wounds there could be no balm. 

He accepted that, set it aside, worked to smile and function normally, and the months slipped aside until they arrived on Lotus 8.

#

Lotus 8, by all rights, should have had the same tragic story as all the other planets they visited. They landed expecting one brand of chaos or the other, as an entire world tried to deal with the sudden reappearance of half its population.

Thor knew that Banner had not intended the madness and destruction he’d caused by reversing Thanos’s action. Perhaps it could not have been avoided. It was terrible to behold, in any case. They’d been witness to wars, starvation, and myriad other horrors over the last year.

The hole in Thor’s heart kept much of the horror from landing, so, he supposed he had to at least thank it for that.

Lotus 8 was no a war zone. There were no unburied piles of the dead anywhere. Warnings and requests for aid were not being broadcast out to travelers through the stars.

“This is weird,” Rocket said, when they disembarked onto the planet, in need of supplies and fuel. “Look. People are smiling.”

“I am Groot.”

“I’m not unhappy about it,” Rocket grumbled, edging a little closer to the Groot. “I’m just saying it’s _uncanny_.”

Thor tuned them out. Not listening to them came easy. They reminded him, if he paid too much attention, of the Warriors Three, and so it was better to let their voices drift past, vague and distant. In any case, they were greeted then by a representative of the planet, happy to assist them and take their credits.

#

“I gotta ask,” Quill said to their representative, a pink-furred woman named N’noth, after she drew up a bill of sale and finished advising them about locations they might visit around the planet. “How is your planet….” He trailed off, waving a hand.

“How are we not in chaos?” she asked, ears turning to face him as her large eyes went half-lidded. “It is a question we hear often from outsiders.” N’noth shrugged and said. “The answer is simple. We did not experience the Snap.”

Thor stopped walking to say, “That’s not possible.”

“And yet,” she said, gesturing around at her planet. They’d moved to a garden location, Lotus 8 seemed full of them. People played and scrambled around, or worked on other business deals, or sat quietly.

“How?” Thor ached, in the burnt spot within his ribs. It was but one more failure, to know that a people had managed to resist the Snap, when so many others - when _he_ \- had failed so utterly.

“Oh, it was nothing we did,” she said, moving forward again. “We credit it to the Sleeper.”

“I am Groot?”

“Mm, yes,” N’noth said, leading them down a path lined with tall, fine trees, untouched by war or calamity. They were making their way to a large domed structure, open to the elements at the sides, with pillars of silver holding it up. “We don’t know what else to call him. We found him drifting around the planet, quite by accident. A crew brought him in and we tried to revive him, but…”

They reached the steps leading up to the structure. They rose from the ground organically. Guards stood all around the structure. “I don’t understand,” Quill said, foot on the first step, “what did he do?”

“We don’t know,” she said. “There’s no way to ask him. He won’t wake up. But, when the Snap came, we never noticed. Others told us about it, when they came here looking for help and sanctuary. Whatever magic impacted the rest of the universe, it passed us by. Here.” She gestured forward as they reached the top of the stairs. “Look in on him, please. We bring all visitors here, hoping one may be able to identify him.”

Thor’s skin rose into gooseflesh. He had no explanation for it, or for the sudden dryness of his mouth, the heavy weight inside his stomach. Quill made to step forward, and Thor moved past him, his mind full of buzzing static, a thought and a portent growing inside him.

Inside the dome, light streamed down from countless small skylights above. Warm golden light bathed the figure on the single raised structure in the middle of the room, little more than a slab. 

Thor swayed as though he’d taken a blow, directly to the center of his chest. The figure lay on their back, hands folded over chest, face tilted upward, eyes closed. And he knew Loki’s form, and the line of Loki’s profile, he knew the leathers Loki wore, saw them in his nightmares most times he dared sleep.

He did not recall crossing the room, but he must have done, staring down. Loki looked… Asleep. Or dead. His eyes were shut, bruised underneath, as though he took no rest. There were marks on his throat, still. The imprints of fingers. He could have been dead, lying in state, but his hair…

His hair had grown terribly long, pouring off the sides of the slab, pooling on the floor.

Thor reached out and touched his hand, ignoring the murmurs of conversation at his back. Loki’s skin felt cold. Cold and-- “He is dead,” Thor said, voice cracking terribly.

“No,” N’noth said, approaching to stand beside Thor. “There are signs of activity in his mind. We don’t know what he’s doing. We presume it’s some kind of coma.” She shrugged. “But he has not decayed or changed since we found him, seven years ago.” She asked, more slowly, “Do you… know him?”

Thor laughed, the sound ragged and short, abruptly bit back. “Yes,” he said, fingers curling around Loki’s hand. “Yes, I know him.”

#

Loki did not wake to Thor’s cajoling, as Rocket and Quill discussed the matter with the inhabitants of Lotus 8. It appeared they were hesitant to let their good-luck charm go. Thor cared little about the argument. He would be taking Loki, no matter what protests they made about it.

Even if he did not stir, did not seem even to breathe.

“Look,” Rocket was saying, when Thor could bear no longer to see Loki spread out like a dead man, and bent, lifting him easily.

One of the world’s inhabitants jumped in front of Thor as he moved to walk down the stairs, arms extended, yelling words that just buzzed, without making any sense at all. Thor stared, unblinking, and, after a moment, the man curled his shoulders down and stepped back.

Thor shifted his grip and took Loki back to the ship.

#

Loki did not wake, not back on the ship, not in Thor’s bunk - filthy, now that he looked about, he would need to clean it. He did not wake when Thor sat beside him and pled for him to do so, when all the horror of the past seven years poured out of Thor’s mouth, when Thor _begged_.

Eventually, Thor stood, dizzy headed. He straightened his quarters. He pulled a blanket across Loki’s form. He went out into the ship, trying to think of some way to wake him. 

“Hey, there you are,” Rocket said, when Thor entered the common room. “I’m not sure I wanna know what you were doing in there with that unconscious guy, but--”

“He is all I have left,” Thor snapped, disliking the lecherous tone, the leer on Rocket’s expression.

“Right, that’s why I’m--”

“Don’t.” Thor heard the rumble under the word and flushed, shamed at the lapse in his control. But Rocket, at least, subsided, ears flattening back as he mumbled something discourteous under his breath.

Nebula shifted, drawing Thor’s attention. “What do you plan to do with this unconscious man?”

“I…” Thor blinked. He felt like he was half in a dream. “I don’t know, wake him up, I suppose. And he has a name. He is Loki. Of Asgard.” His throat tightened on him, terribly. He fought against the ache of it, the fresh pain in his chest, as his heart attempted to stir from stone back to flesh.

“They have tried to wake him for seven years,” Nebula said, watching him with dark eyes. “What makes you think you’ll be able to do it?”

“Because I must,” Thor said, the truth of the words burning through him. He had to. There were no other options before him.

#

Waking him was not as simple as merely saying the words. They visited seers and sorcerers across the worlds, looking for an answer to Loki’s terrible sleep. They received no help, only vague talk of some powerful working.

Thor did not need to be told that Loki had done some piece of tremendous magic. He must have done, to survive the black of space, to live in this state for so long, to, somehow, protect can entire planet from Thanos’s attentions.

He wished Loki would wake up and gloat about it. 

#

They carried Loki around for weeks, without him so much as stirring, when Quill dropped down into a chair beside Thor, stretched out his legs, and said, “So, you know, on Earth we have a story about something kind of like this happening.”

Thor turned to blink at him. He felt exhausted. He had slept little in the last weeks, worried that Loki would wake while he was not paying attention. “What?”

“Yeah,” Quill said, leaning his head back. The others around the room shifted, obviously listening as well. “I mean, okay, so. There was this princess, right? And she was going around, doing princess stuff, I guess, until her mom died. And her dad, the king, he decided that he needed to get a new queen right away, so he married this other woman--”

“Quill,” Thor interrupted, too tired to desire to listen to a rambling discourse on some Midgardian tale.

“I’m getting there,” Quill said, chiding. “So he married this other woman, who turned out to be an evil witch, but she was alright at first, I guess. Anyway, eventually the king dies. Or maybe he doesn’t. I don’t remember, we have a lot of stories like this. In any case, the princess grows up, and it turns out she’s a real looker, which makes the evil queen pissed.

“And, there’s more in there, but I can see you’re not interested. What happens is, at the end, the evil queen curses the princess. She falls asleep. Can’t be woken up. Except,” and there Quill paused, as though for effect, “by true love’s kiss.”

Thor stared at him. 

Nebula shifted around and said, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Yeah,” Rocket said, “are we talking the kiss of one who loved her truly? How do you measure that? What’s the standard for ‘true love’?”

Quill shrugged. “I don’t know, guys. I think it’s supposed to be the kiss of the person destined to be her true love, I heard this story thirty years ago.”

Drax shifted, his voice a low grumble, just in the background of the clamour inside Thor’s head, “You mention this only because you want to kiss the unconscious man.”

Quill startled, voice tinged with offense, “Hey, I do not. I don’t kiss unconscious people. That’s--that’s--”

Thor stood up. Their foolish argument was giving him a headache. He walked from the room, up into the cockpit, to stare at the stars and think, his chest afire with pain.

#

Everyone had always said Loki kept secrets, told lies, stretched and bent the truth to his whims. But he had not been the only member of their family who held back the truth. In fact, Thor figured they all had, to one degree or the other.

Odin had lied about… everything, it seemed. Mother kept his secrets. And Thor had secrets of his own.

He curled his hands into fists, eyes squeezed shut as he thought. It was only a foolish Midgardian tale. Just a story, apparently for children. But, oh, they had tried everything else….

He jerked his head, a nod no one saw, and turned on his heel.

#

Thor stood in the doorway to his quarters for a long time, gripping the doorframe, staring into the room. He kept a light on all the time. He did not want Loki to wake up in the dark. It painted his skin with a golden glow. He looked like he was only sleeping, ready to be awoken with a touch.

Thor swallowed convulsively, stepping into the room. The door shut behind him with a whisper that made him flinch. His reborn heart raced inside his ribs. 

Loki had not moved or shifted from where Thor placed him. The marks around his throat remained. His hair spread across the pillow and over the sheets, falling onto the floor. Thor knelt by the mattress, the floor hard under his knees.

He took a breath, fighting for it, and touched Loki’s forehead. He felt cold. So cold. 

“I know this may not work,” Thor said, into the quiet of the room. He fussed about, straightening the blankets, rearranging Loki’s hands. He dragged his hand over his mouth. His stomach burned with acid. His eyes stung. “But.” He had to clear his throat. “But if Quill’s story is correct, it should.”

He shifted closer, sat on the edge of the bed. He placed one hand by Loki’s head, stretched over him, brushed a finger across Loki’s cheek. He had to swallow again, looking at the fall of Loki’s eyelashes, the curve of his mouth, the _stillness_ of him.

He wetted his lips. He said, “I’m sorry,” and did not know if he were apologizing for trying, for the fact that it might work, for the better chance that it would not.

He bent his head, hesitated for a heartbeat, shut his eyes, and kissed Loki’s mouth.

His lips were dry and cool. It felt almost like kissing a statue. Thor bit his tongue. It did not work, it had not, how foolish he had been to--

And Loki gasped against his mouth, a fast, desperate inhalation as his back bowed up, his body thrashing into sudden motion. Thor jerked back, lightning pouring down his spine, and Loki grabbed at him, hands clenching around his shoulders, grappling himself up and off the mattress.

Loki’s eyes were wide, wild. He gulped at the air, leaning forward against Thor, pulse racing as he laughed - he _laughed_, wild and too loud and it was the single most beautiful sound Thor had heard in his entire life - and said, “It worked!”

Thor could not speak. All his words had fled from him. He could only stare, drinking in the sight of Loki, who lurched unsteadily to his feet, laughing still, giddy into the room. Thor wondered how long it would take him to realize what had happened and braced for it, even this single instant of joy marred by the ache inside his chest.


End file.
